Rashemi Mountains
by Blue-Inked Frost
Summary: After the Throne of Bhaal, Imoen and friends travel on. Written Yuletide 2011 for Astarlia.
1. Chapter 1

_Summary:_ After the Throne of Bhaal, Imoen and friends travel on. Written Yuletide 2011 for Astarlia.

—

The rain drowned them, and beyond the dark clouds lightning whirled. Imoen brushed the wet rats' tails of her hair out of her eyes once again and sniffled.

"Do not ask again, Imoen," Jaheira said. "Sadly, we are not nearly there yet." She turned to face headfirst into the pelting rain, her iron staff upright by her side as if she leaned on it not at all to make headway against the wind.

The black mud glopped around Imoen's boots. She stepped too deeply and the stuff dribbled down from her ankles, cold and squishy over her feet. Maybe the big lug in front of her kept some of the rain off 'em; she couldn't tell. Minsc was big and cloaked and a black shape in front of her in a heavy cloak. Everything was black as midnight, the storm something fierce. Imoen glared up at the clouds, rain in her eyes.

_Heya, sis, are you up there?_

Her nose collided into a metal mountain. She stopped and pulled herself off Minsc, shaking down her hood.

"Hey, why'd you stop?" she yelled at him. Some path this was. An overhanging bough of tree didn't shelter her at all.

"Boo has smelt something, my witch," Minsc said, stepping around to face her. Imoen couldn't see where the hamster was on him. He was a wet dark shape, only the faintest of gleams in his wide blue eyes. "Something that may be evil."

"I want to go on," Imoen said, and realised it made her sound childish.

_Eternal little sister, huh? Huh, sis? You up there?_

"There's gotta be a cave or something we can wait out this rain!" Imoen yelled. "Rock overhang, tunnel, shepherd's hut, whatever-the-nine-hells! I'm your witch, Minsc, get on and take us somewhere _dry_, then it doesn't matter what-in-the-Abyss's about to go after us this time— Hear that, you big lug? Your witch just said, take us somewhere dry—" It pelted worse than ever. A large hailstone ricocheted off her head and fell to the ground. A second followed. Blue lightning split the sky far in the distance and thunder rolled.

"If there were something I should know," Jaheira said curtly, raising her voice above the rain. "I know the natural world. I know storms and trees. Come, let us move..."

"No," Minsc said, and grabbed both of Imoen's arms and pulled her close. She kicked him in his metal-covered shins. "I must protect my witch. I must protect my witch from the—"

"From the what?" Jaheira said, and lit the falling rain and hail with a golden fire that smoked and danced in her right hand. One of many of the endless dark cliffs that made up the southern border of Rashemen was visible behind her, rolling and rising and falling and rising once more. She blurred in and out. Imoen blinked rain out of her eyes and tried to escape. "I tell you I sense nothing! Am I blind, or are you enchanted, Minsc?" Nonetheless she swung her flames around in a circle, glancing forward and back.

"From this," Minsc said, and flung Imoen down for her to drown in black mud that filled her nose and mouth. But above her she heard Minsc's sword clash into _something_.

_So ol' Jaheira? All wrong, then..._

Imoen heard the druid's cry as she spat out the disgusting mud, and that stopped her tired bitterness toward all Jaheira's bossiness lately. Then she looked up, reaching into the Weave for illumination of what in all the Nine Hells this was.

'Least four figures in heavy cloaks, her flickering magelight caught. Heavy pikes ramming into Minsc's blade. Jaheira beating two off with her staff. Masked, too, pale featureless faces that looked like nothing in the dark. Imoen shouted out the words for lightning, wildfire, force-missiles, all at once because little Immy was the strongest now.

_Heya, now, sis? D'you see me now?_

Her chain of lightning flashed into four of them, a fifth she'd spotted at the last moment, perfect, convulsing their bodies. But nothing changed. Didn't seem singed from anything she'd done. Imoen the archmage reached for more spells, _blast them into the Nine Hells, oblivion_—

Missiles soaked into the cloaked men like she'd aimed into mud. Jaheira's iron-skinned fist punched one in the face. The rain pelted too heavy to hear anything.

Then metal entered her back. She yelped, fell forward, and the stoneskin and fireball burst of her contingency flared open. Imoen drew her short sword and lunged back, trying to cut out the heart of these, assassins, bandits—_whatever they were_— She tried a chroma-orb from her right hand, and it fell against the robe and bled into the colours of it. The pike he carried swept above her head.

"_Defend my witch! Defend my witch!_" Minsc cried. He charged, and nearly forced Imoen into the mud again. He beat the man back, it—it—

_Had to be it_, Imoen thought, faceless masks in the dark. She brushed mud off her cheek. Another came too close to her—she heard Jaheira's yell—and out of instinct she screamed out an acid arrow, make them be all eaten—

_Who says I'm not the Daughter of Murder too, sis?_

But that didn't do anything either. Then in a flash of golden lightning she saw Minsc slice into one of the cloaks, deep and finally where the heart should've been, and the mask flew off.

No face, Imoen saw, stumbling in the mud. No face—white smoke below the masks—the cloak crumbling to dust. No sign it had ever been.

"Someone doesn't want us in Rashemen, huh?" she shouted to the storm. "Someone sent—stupid magical constructs, so _pathetic_—"

A mask whirled at her. None of her blasting spells were going to hit it, only make it stronger, like it was a magic golem, shapeless mass coming at her like a hasheakar sucking spells out of her body. Imoen ran behind Minsc. He beat it down, but it was hurting him, a wound on his stomach and the screaming battle-cry that meant he was desperate. Imoen saw pale mask after pale mask, three of them, swirling cloaks and weapons in the air. Her stoneskin was gone and something cut her. She screamed at Minsc not to strike there, not to let its smoke sweep by her and the faceless face blow through her flesh, but he wasn't hearing her and then it was darker than the storm.

—

She'd thought she'd dream of Dynaheir again. Or her sister. Nikothodes. Damn it.

It was all grey. Featureless plain, and when Imoen looked down into the abyss—

_Imoen blinked, and the abyss still looked back._

It wasn't a dream. It was her head playing mean, bad tricks on her, endless grey desert. Her mind was muzzied and her head ached, and none of the ghosts and gods she usually saw were here to tell her she was doing the right thing—

—

Jaheira's hands kneaded the knots in her temples. Imoen woke up to a dead grey sky and carrion birds shrieking above her head.

"We have lost time, but we can again see the Sarkady road," Jaheira said, jerking her chin down to point to something fuzzy at the bottom of the cliff. Imoen lay on rough stiff stone; the bedroll was thin and her limbs ached, and there was a nasty taste in her mouth as if she'd eaten a dinner's worth of dust fluff.

"Gee, Jaheira, I'm okay, thanks for caring," Imoen spat out. Jaheira's expression did not change. "Hey, Minsc, what were those things you let get close to me? You're s'posed to be the scout!"

_Easy there, Immy._

She made herself calm down. She'd still a small lump of cheese in her belt she'd saved for Boo. She whistled and clicked to get the hamster to come over. The small black bag was still tied neatly around its neck.

"They were no spirits," Minsc said, huge and cross-legged on the rocks by her. "They were bad spirits. No. That is too much of confusion. They were bad, and they were not the spirits of Rashemen, who shall be nice to Minsc's new witch and welcome her home at last. Beyond that, Boo and I are not sure. How can evil things have no butts to kick?"

"They were _not_ natural," Jaheira said. "Feh. Usual enough for our enemies. Perhaps it was the remains of the slaver scum of Amn." She stood in a single, contained motion. "It would be more foolish to obey them. Walk on."

—


	2. Chapter 2

Imoen's head still ached and her teeth were set on edge. Jaheira walked like she was made of iron and Minsc was even worse. Nothing wrong with not being built like a brick outhouse big enough for fire giants to use; nothing wrong with not being able to tramp everywhere and still have enough energy to sweep the hundred-yard glaring competitions. Jaheira just didn't stop the baleful stare. Like she'd freeze the whole world to death if she had her wish.

_Gee, sis, where're you now? Oh, put a lid on it, Imoen._ She was tired and a flock of mites buzzed and busied themselves inside her heads, and she didn't say anything in case Minsc wanted to pick her up and carry her right through the town square. Getting close to dusk. A long walk on the Sarkady road, and here at the rear-end of nowhere—wandering through some small town too obscure for anyone to attack that mightn't even have so much as an inn. Probably put 'em up in someone's barn or something with the goats. Imoen kicked at a dull grey stone on the road.

A peasant man wandering from the fields smiled at them, several teeth missing from his mouth and the rest in none too sanitary condition. Then he flung his arms around Jaheira, kissed her, and was knocked to the ground by a vicious punch that sent him flying. Imoen winced. Minsc ran to pick the man up.

"It must be Mashenka!" Minsc cheered. "I had missed the dates, and the time of this! Oh, Boo, we have come on Mashenkafest once more! Come now, good man of Rashemen! You must not give travellers the kiss of brotherhood when they do not want it; but I will ask the pretty Lady Khelliara to make it all better! And a happy Mashenka to you!"

Imoen saw him pick up the man between both his meaty arms, swing him around in the air, and plant a kiss himself on the man's face. Jaheira glared still worse than before. As soon as Minsc released the peasant he ran at full speed down the dirt road, probably preparing to make his will if he had anything to leave.

"I will turn myself into a bear the next time any—_dares_—such a thing," Jaheira said through gritted teeth. "Minsc, what repulsive custom have you led us into? I—despise—"

"Here, Jaheira, he gave a Mashenka cake in payment!" Minsc said. "Well, he would have if it had not been so rushed, so I took it from him. Here! It is very good."

It was a dirty-looking small doughy thing. Jaheira shook her head and it went in Minsc's own mouth. "The taste of Rashemen!" he boomed. "Boo, my witch, do you feel it? We can smell the air of home at last!"

"Mostly the air of stinking manure," Imoen said. "Hey, what do they spread on the fields around here? Heapings of carrion crawler dung?"

"It is mostly the spoor of cattle and elk," Minsc said. He plucked a few flexible branches from a tree and wove them into rough wreaths. "You can wear these. They mark that you have no Mashenka treats to give."

"That was almost a nasty, sarcastic dismissal of us, Minscy," Imoen teased. "But, hey, thanks. You can tell us all about Mashenka if you like."

He was unusually quiet as they sloped toward the one inn in the middle of nowhere. There were a couple more peasants, but Jaheira's glare sent them off.

It was surprisingly warm inside. The chimney had smoked from the outside, and within the walls were heavily chinked and pitched to trap the heat. A blazing fire roared, heavily stocked with a large pile of logs beside it, ready to go. Strings of garlic hung down from the roof and gave the inn a strong smell that would probably annihilate any vampires who came within a hundred-mile radius, all bound up with other, nicer-stinking, herbs and spices in green and brown and dark red. Between them were fat haunches of ham hung down from the roof, pigs that must've been healthy when they were alive. The inn was what Imoen supposed was crowded for a place like this, with even a few peasants who looked just about rich enough to own as many as two goats. The talk and drink were flowing free enough that in other days she'd've found it easy to dip from a pocket or two, practice being fast and playing tricks on people; but Imoen the archmage didn't do that so much any more.

"Minsc, purchase us some clear ale," Jaheira ordered, sitting herself down in a far corner and making it plain she expected Imoen to join her. "Something natural, as clean as possible, and unlikely to slow us down on the next day."

"Most certainly," Minsc answered, watching the bartender; she was a tall woman in a bright red dress, cut rather low over generous cleavage. Slightly on the plump side, as if she was just about to burst out in luxuriant flesh; she tapped her fingers impatiently on her bar and tossed her dark brown hair. "She seems a lovely woman with lurking fires in her eyes! Don't you think so, Boo? Just like the proper berserking women and lady blacksmiths of the homeland!

"Happy Mashenka to you, pretty lady!" Minsc beamed, throwing down a full purse of coin on the bar and holding out Boo. "A splendid place here for the Mashenka celebrations with ale and hogs and pancakes aplenty! I am Minsc of Rashemen, and this is my animal companion Boo! Boo is very pleased to meet you."

He held out the hamster. The woman sneezed loudly.

"Get that flea-bitten thing away from me or you will shortly find yourself the human companion of a set of small furry earmuffs. (Rodents and the ravings of their cretinous masters—but this is undoubtedly trouble—)" Imoen saw her distinctly glare over to her and Jaheira at their table. _Come to think of it maybe she looks kinda familiar...but I don't think we really _know_ her; maybe she just reminds me of something._

"Ah, you are one of the fine fighting women of the homeland at heart, even if from your accent your heart was not forged in Rashemen!" Minsc tucked the hamster gently away in a pouch. "Roaring fire in your belly and never afraid to spit in the eye!"

"Certainly not of your homeland, you bloodthirsty congenitally moronic berserker!" The woman turned in a ripple of cleavage and began lifting bottles down from her wall. "Three ales. Five—no, ten gold apiece (might as well exploit the pathetically cretinous village imbecile when he is present to be exploited)."

Minsc paid easily; gold just wasn't a problem for them. "And little Imoen and Jaheira, who is sometimes a wolf, would like one of your fine hams! And for Minsc and Boo, who are honourable Rashemi warriors of the forest who do not eat meat, some nuts and berries and many, many vegetables will be delicious. And do not forget the Mashenka pancakes I smell upon the stove! Ten—or twenty, or fifty might be enough, for they smell as righteous and tasty as your shape, dear lady!"

"(I'll shove a fireball up his left nostril when he least expects it.)"

Minsc returned to the table with a pouched necklace hung around his chest; on inspection it turned out to be made of small but thick cakes.

"Mashenka treats, for tonight we of Rashemen live in the last luxury of the harvest!" he proclaimed. He detached one and offered it across the table. "Enjoy, my Witch and my comrade of the woods!"

Boo, in fact, was the first one to bite and munch at the thing, scurrying across the table to get at the strange Rashemi artefact. Imoen rested her chin on her hand and stared stubbornly around at the smoky tavern. The bartender slowly undulated up to them with three tankards to be starting with.

"By rights this should be good Rashemi jhulid firewine, distilled from mostly grapes and heated by the ancient flames of red dragons and cooled in the ice waters of the northernmost peaks and cliffs of Lake Ashane!" Minsc declared, raising his; "but instead we drink fine ale in the company of friends!"

Jaheira raised her share to her mouth and drunk a third of it easily. She didn't get herself boozed; probably some sort of annoying side effect of being a druid and all. Imoen'd always keeled over easy since the time she'd broken into Winthrop's supplies at age fourteen...with Nik, of course. Who hadn't done any better that first time on a spree. Typical annoying sister.

Imoen's stomach growled. She couldn't help but smell the promised pancakes and the frying, sizzling sounds and smell of juicy full meat. She was hungry, she couldn't help it; her insides imitated the sound of Jaheira's bear form and she ignored it with great dignity. The lady bartender slowly brought over their meal, shooting fiery glares in response to Minsc's admiring glances.

_Hey, she really does look familiar_, Imoen thought, watching her set the food down with a scowl on her face barely less than Jaheira's. _Still can't place her! You'd think a rogue's eye'd do better._

"Say, how long've you owned this place, lady?" Imoen said. "It's kinda...well, it's kinda a small smoky joint in the middle of nowhere, but I was wondering, do you think it's also kinda you?"

"(_Shut up pestilent interfering irritating monkey-brained—_) Not too terribly long, my dear child; but a simple and charming, if rustic, experiment." She smiled against her will and sashayed with her hips. "Simply must attend to all my other customers now. (And manage the invisible servants in the back before they follow my orders off the proverbial cliff! I still remember the self-locomoting broomstick incident of...oh, Tenday Ago...)"

Imoen attacked her fried ham with a savoury pancake to sop up the juices. Nicely cooked; not too fancy-done, but hot and spiced with pungent black cloves and going down just right with garlic on the aftertaste to stink up your breath, not that Imoen particularly cared about that for now. Jaheira bent over her share with a distinctly wolfish look, as if she'd only been pretending not to be hungry; just like Imoen had known all along, of course. Minsc had a platter of what were probably fried mushrooms, huge black wrinkled things almost the size of Imoen's head drenched in enough melted butter to drown in; a smaller but still alarmingly large heap of nuts and some kind of berry tart decorated with more dried red berries; and the pile of pancakes to follow, as if the proprietor had liked him after all. (Or at least had wanted to charge him more.)

She was warm in here, and suddenly after perhaps slightly more than half the ham and eight pancakes Imoen realised she wasn't hungry any more. Two ales, that was plenty enough. She yawned. The voices in here'd grown much louder and some piper and drummer just couldn't keep it down. There was jumping up and down like a herd of elephants had suddenly decided to pound on the ground, and she heard cries and shouts of some backwoods party. She felt their own table shake and looked down to see Minsc's huge thigh and foot sketching out a dance tune.

"What is it now, Minscy?" Imoen said, running a greasy, sticky hand through her hair. She'd need a wash.

"Mashenka..." He folded his hands together and looked down at Boo eating one of the last of the nuts. "It is...Mashenka dancing. It is the tune of the summer blood dance that is performed with the fire and the sweet juice of red berries in the blood. It is a song of berserker and red-blooded maiden alike. Part of it is also lullaby to children; and a song and a dance loved by many..."

Imoen picked at the nail on her right forefinger. "Go dance it, Minsc. You know you want to!"

His face brightened. "My little witch!" he said; and before Imoen could knee him in the ribs or anywhere else effective she found him lifting her out of her safe wedge between wooden bench and wall, and moving her into the herd of dancing villagers. His head brushed the bottom of the hung hams and herbs.

"Summer dance!" Minsc cheered, "_letom tantsa, letomis tansara!_" Imoen followed the steps easily enough, for she'd always been fast on her feet; and then a male peasant snatched her from Minsc as part of the dance, weaving her down a long chain of partners. She let them have her for a while, seeing Minsc cheering and stomping along louder than any of them behind her. Then she slipped back into the shadows next to Jaheira.

Jaheira stared stonily at the dancers and picked up the second full flask of ale left on their table. Imoen drained what was left in her open tankard.

"_Three steps of winter, wahey, wahey! Golden fruits of summer, wahey, wahey! Pancake-sup and merry-make, ice-grape-fire of joy partake, wahey, wahey!"_

Someone had laid another two garlands of flowers and cakes around Minsc's neck. He danced on, lifting one woman after the next. Imoen looked back at Jaheira. Two tendays since they'd finally dug through Athkatla promenade and lifted out the remains.

_Poor ol' Khalid. I always liked him; I used to think he deserved better than strict nasty Jaheira, because he was always sweet and kind and gentle and protected all of us by fighting even when he was most afraid..._

_Maybe I even liked him more than that. Cute redheads ought to stick together, right? I haven't met a single man I liked better than him, even counting good ol' Minsc, who's a brunette when he doesn't shave. He was patient and helped me with my swordwork and understood about things even after I nicked his wedding ring, and y' should've seen Jaheira's expression at that prank. But none of that ever really mattered, because he died in Irenicus' dungeon and I was only being a kid._

_Silvanus send him toward the light_, Jaheira'd said over the grave in the forest just outside Amn. _Guide this man to the source. Let there be balance; let there be peace._

And there'd been even less left of Dynaheir. Boo scratched at the black pouch over his neck and the bone that was hidden there. Khalid got a proper burial in the woods; Dynaheir needed one in her homeland.

Imoen wouldn't have kept dreaming of the woman who'd taught her magic and her next-best friend to Nik and Khalid otherwise.

"The Volta, pretty lady!" Minsc cheered, offering a wide hand to the bartender. "Come dance this one! It is a night too beautiful to sit out like the wallflower, even if the wallflower is beautiful with dark fire in her eyes and red fire on her petals! Her gown, I mean!"

Everyone seemed busy dancing instead of eating or drinking; Imoen heard a zither and lute added to the pipe and drumming that went right through her ears.

"Oh good sir, I may swoon by your compliments... (I mean, Fireball! Left nostril! Quick flaming death—!)" She joined hands with Minsc and crossed the dance floor, stepping heavily in her well-shined black boots.

"Now if you would cooperate, blasted barbarian—" she called out, nasal accent audible even among the throng of others. Minsc placed one hand on her waist, the other on her back above her hips.

"You are taking the male part, pretty lady! Only trust Minsc to lead, and he shall not let you fall!" The woman stumbled in her steps; she shifted a hand to cling to Minsc's shoulder. He led her through the steps with her red dress whirling about her legs.

"(Well, I would hate to lift you, simply between ourselves.)" She yielded to Minsc's lead, almost flying around the room in his arms.

_Tum tum tum jump, ta ta; tum tum tum jump—_ Imoen heard the music say, Mashenka-necklaces flying and boots hitting the ground, people hurtling through the dark night like living fires dancing on wood.

"Lavolta!" Minsc cheered first. He threw his partner high in the air, turning her and lifting her and catching her safely in a spin, her hair fallen down in brown tangles and her face flushed red from exertion.

"Lavolta!" echoed all, and the small inn was a sea of flame and dance—

She'd been tired from the drink and had a headache, and she'd been lurking in the shadows with Jaheira. Imoen saw the wraiths creeping under the door and heard the first screams.

_They're here_, she thought muzzily, and flicked out her sleeves for some spell components. _They're here, they're here, they're here again._

_Of course they're after us._

"I will get the innocents to safety," Jaheira promised, springing up. "Imoen, use your wits to battle! Minsc, to the fight!"

The civilians had to be out of the tavern.

_No, it wasn't the first wraiths. These're different._ Imoen saw black things made from only smoke, not even pretending to be masked people under outfits. They sizzled in the air with the smell of burning corpses and something else that stunk worse than Korgan Bloodaxe's unmentionables, and Imoen wondered if close they'd be too much to handle—

Indeed. Men and women who got too close screamed that they were burned. Jaheira hurried them away, healed them; and the wraiths advanced toward Imoen and her friends. Minsc threw the bartender behind her bar, though she shrieked.

"(Insolent, ignorant fool! How dare you treat a lady—curse it!)"

_She could settle them_. Imoen sent out cold-magic, summoning ice chips spiralling through the air out of a piece of transmuted glass—_cold and clear, that's what I need, cold and clear always, invoked—_

_The Law of Sympathies, Imoen; 'tis that which summons to thy needs in honour of thine invocation..._

And the dweomered edge of Minsc's blade had an effect on 'em, unlike the last wraiths. They shuddered and fell partway apart, which was good since some of 'em were coming too close to her.

_Shield of bluefire, live glowworm in my glass tube to light it up and give it to me to let 'em burn in cold and chill..._

Imoen was surprised how much she shivered, but she let her ice whirlwind control the creatures who attacked the tavern. Chips of ice rammed like broken glass into hams and garlic strings fluttered like kite tails.

Jaheira chanted, and an earth elemental rose from the ground and cracked open the floor of the tavern. It swung its fists, and where it did parted and put down the burning smoke.

_Brimstone_, Imoen thought. _That's what it stinks of. Sulphur and brimstone. Nine Hells—really—_

"My _floor_, you fool! How dare you destroy my floor!" the bartender shouted. "(As if all this was not sufficient insult!) Die, all you fiends, die!" she cried, and to Imoen's surprise the strings of garlic came down from the roof as if they were being carried by a horde of invisible servants.

_She's a mage too? 'Splains a lot!_

"(Now, undead things, sense the value of a proper preparation made, for I suspected—)"

Nothing seemed to happen from the garlic. The bartender cursed in the language of her accent—whatever that was—and tried a different one, reaching into the Weave in a way Imoen had to respect even if the woman wasn't an ex-Bhaalspawn archmage. A juddering wind blew along Imoen's cold and dispersed the smoke in a burst of air and some kind of sickly floral perfume.

Jaheira turned back. "The attack seeks us. They are safe. I call upon Silvanus' power..."

Then what must've been leading the smoke-wraiths burst in through the tavern's doors, bringing them down in a shattering explosion. The bartender broke off her spell to howl in rage again.

She looked like an old woman, but Imoen was sure she didn't breathe. Scanty white hair in long tangles down to her waist from a half-bald head. Brown-yellow skin wrinkled deep as if she'd been soaked in vinegar for a hundred years dead. She leaned on a cane topped by a white skull with burning eyes, and the dark red fire that lurked inside that death belched the same brimstone smoke.

"Hag!" Minsc called, and charged.

—


	3. Chapter 3

Jaheira reached down to the earth below the flooring her elemental'd ripped up, a green vine looped around her fingers. "I bind you in the Oak Lord's name!" she called, chanting one of her entanglements grown so strong since the first time Imoen had seen it. Her elemental turned toward the hag.

The hag laughed a dry laugh, half old never-opened book and half teeth grinding on skin. "I will crack open your bones and sup on their marrow, halfbreed outsider." Brimstone-fire spat toward the earth elemental, bit at Jaheira; and the summoned creature fell. Jaheira stumbled back, and Imoen thought she actually saw shock on her face.

"Faced worse than you in our sleep," Imoen spat. The hag beat Minsc's sword off with that staff of hers. It was an opening for a bit of the right sort of flame—it worked against undead— Imoen fired her mage's arrow almost at the same time as the bartender's Agannazar's Scorcher.

She stared at no rippling cracks in the hag's undead shape. The fire touched the skull, then the fire was drawn into the skull's laughing face. The hag crunched her teeth in laughter.

_Look at the Weave, Imoen. Is't not beautiful and wonderful, a thing of grace everchanging? In it are divined answers; thou may spool at the very threads that hold together the world in its spin; discover thy foes..._

Imoen took up a piece of amber smelling of slick static and shaped her spell. Then she aimed without mercy for the inside of the creature. Lightning came inside the hag, forward and backward inside her; and Imoen the archmage watched her own power beat and burn. The lightning was hot and thick and purple inside her, part of her, the spell in her blood and in the air and in the enemy stronger than most times she'd done it—

The bartender's missiles flew into the hag's hide and hurt it, the barrage unceasing. Jaheira's staff and Minsc's sword hit aged dead flesh.

_I see it_, Imoen knew, _I see the hag coming apart, undead always fray away, necromancy's always icky—_ This one melted into the ground. Imoen glanced at the bartender, but she only gloated over her missiles and didn't seem to give much sight for what happened.

_And, Imoen; to look at the Weave is also to know thine own self..._

_Oh, forget it._

"My Witch!" Minsc laughed, picking her up in the victory, "you have slain it! We have slain a hag of the durthan! Your spell was strong with the very magic of Rashemen! Come now, hamsters and rangers and witches, all rejoice!" He set Imoen down and did the same to the other protesting mage, almost taking her in the Volta again. "We are all—Mighty Heroes of Rashemen!"

"I may swoon again. (While vomiting.) Do you have any idea how long it will take my invisible servants to clean this mess?" The woman brushed down her long red dress and snapped her fingers.

Imoen stared at her.

"Say," Imoen said. "I reckon I _do_ know who you are. Hey, Jaheira, d' you recognise her? Him? Whatever? Red robes—mage—used to have this beard, still's got the nosering—used to want Dyna dead, but guess we can let bygones be bygones—"

"I have not the faintest idea what you are talking about, foolish brat. Why that sister of yours ever let you out to roam I will never—" The bartender clamped her mouth shut.

"See, she knows!" Imoen said. "How's it been? Edna, was it? Dame Edna?"

"My name is Edwina." The woman sniffed, folded her arms over her chest, and stamped a somewhat ladylike foot.

"I see!" Minsc leaned over her. "You are the sister of Edwin the Evil Red Wizard! Why, I swore that if I should set eyes on the one who wished sweet Dynaheir dead, I should not rest until his evil gizzards were wrapped around my sword; but you are Edwin's sister, and by far his superior in manner! See how Boo still likes you?"

"Nature brings all into harmony and balance," Jaheira said, her face expressionless as stone as she straightened up. "Perhaps you are now as you ought to be—instead of whatever you were before, Edwina?"

"Perhaps you would join us in the kicking of many evil butts!" Minsc cheered. "A second fierce battling witch to join Minsc's witch against our foes! We have fought with stout spell and blade and boot, and together we should form a fine grouping—"

"I who have been Emperor-God of the most important part of the world receive an offer to join your pitiful bedraggled group? Not in the least." Edwina shrugged.

"Right," Imoen said, giggling. "So you went back home to—what, Thay, isn't it? And how many days did this Emperor-God-King-thing last, Eddie? And then did they pop a girdle on you to turn you into a girl?"

"Enough for me to grow satiated of ruling, foolish child," Edwina snapped. "(Two. And a half.) And they did not transform me! I had a...mage's disagreement...with the so-called master of the pointy hat. (Why, give me two thousand years and a piece of suitable headgear—and I'll take that pointy hat and ram it with hot pokers and lots of spiky bits up— Never mind.)" She twitched her fingers, and debris floated up from the ground to begin a reassembly of her bar. "Get on your way, galling fools."

"Minsc and Boo remember you well, dear lady! Do not give our regards to your brother! Fare well!" Minsc's lips smacked heartily against Edwina's cheek—for luck, he said—and once more they were off on the road.

—

The sky was a blue as cold as it was bright in the Mulsan Mountains, with no trace of cloud in the air; but through the dark boughs of the forest little enough of it was visible. The sky above stayed clear and when Imoen walked past golden dapples of sunlight she felt scarce warmth on her skin.

_Someone doesn't want us in Rashemen_, Imoen repeated to herself. _Well, we're in Rashemen for sure now. Can't be Nik, can it?_

"Nature is different in this land," Jaheira said, tight-lipped and unbending ever since the hag downing her. "I sense that well enough. Tell us further, Minsc, of what to expect."

"The hag is an evil creature who can be raised by durthan," Minsc said; Imoen asked him to explain what that happened to be. "There are spirits of the land who hate love and togetherness. Not many, but a few. They wish killing and killing only, and not good camaraderie and friends and raising up again. Durthan are bad witches who serve those."

"Okay. So that's the moral, stick to being a good witch, right?" Imoen said. "Hey, I don't want to be a durthan, if'n you have to be around icky hags..."

"Do not jest of it!" Minsc burst out, looking all too serious. "A Witch must stay a good Witch! It is never funny to talk of those things. Be true to the land of Rashemen, and Rashemen shall be true to you."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll let you know if I start cackling." Imoen jogged on. This was a path winding back up between a thick pine forest, smelling thickly of sap and early wintergreen. She'd never liked hiking up hills; ducking across city streets like a rogue was more fun and easier on the calves.

Minsc put a heavy hand on her shoulder and stopped her in her path. She jumped. "Do _not_ jest of it," he repeated. "I swore an oath to protect a witch at any cost. You are my word. Without a witch I am no man and no ranger. Minsc and Boo will have no place at home and wander in dishonour forever. This was Boo's phrase. Little Imoen, are you a good Witch?"

The Rashemi air was cold. Imoen breathed in deep; sometimes she needed a pause for thought, even if her mind worked faster than Minsc's and most anyone else's.

"I—try," she said. "Sometimes I try. I couldn't want a better friend than you and Boo, Minsc; and then there's you, Jaheira, always with us..."

Ice might have cracked in the distance.

"Come now," Jaheira said, watching the trees; "it is rarely safe to remain in the same place for too long."

—

_And are there going to be wraiths or hags tonight?_ Imoen thought, curling up next to warm embers of a fire dampened to near blackness by Minsc's careful layering. _Or worse! Vampires maybe! Too bad my breath doesn't smell that bad today._ Bodhi'd picked Lord Keldy out of all their group, to enjoy herself corrupting a paladin and trying to show Nik could be hurt; and then Nik hadn't slept for days figuring out how to stop the curse and bring Keldorn back to his wife and kids. Goin' against Jaheira's worries on how it might all be unnatural, but it had worked out. Until what Nik had done to him later, anyway.

Still no clouds in the sky.

_Heya, Lady of Lightning, who's sending us bad things?_

_Heya, Khalid, can't'cha put in a good word for us up there or cheer up your wife or something? Oh, never mind._

_Heya, Dyna-ghost, still know what you want me to do with your bones?_

Minsc was on watch beside her, legs crossed over and sitting still and solid as a statue you really didn't want to bother. Imoen fell asleep.

—

Mazes were made for monks in the beginning.

They weren't mazes really, they were labyrinths. The beginning was the same as the end. You were a monk and you wanted to think about a tangle of thought and contemplate your god. So you took a tangled path that led you back to the beginning, because your god is infinite. You can see the marks of old labyrinths even after the old hedges that grew to make them withered and died and the leaves blew away, because you could see the old stone knots worn away by centuries of monks' feet over the path of the labyrinth.

It was ol' Parda back in Candlekeep who taught her that. Got her clearing away and digging down to the old labyrinth on the castle grounds, now halfway through the Candlekeep flowerbeds—free labour, since the old mazes were buried deep.

Imoen picked grey flowers in a grey maze. It was quiet, really. Kind of like home. She'd thought of Candlekeep as that kind of grey place where nothing happened, and that was why she'd left when Nik back to the beginning can turn out emptier than the end.

_The books, Imoen. Thy books—thy magnificent treasures—wouldst I could stay a tenday, a month, a year to learn and read and devour—_

_You know I only liked it there as much as you did, Im. And that was never enough._

Grey maze, grey fog, and she was sure she was drifting half-awake already.

_No, let me walk the maze. Being tired is boring._

Still walking through Rashemen's endless forests. _Do you know how much one tree looks just exactly like another tree?_ she kept saying to Jaheira and Minsc, and getting told off and exactly why it was apparently not. Imoen stepped on, same as before, one foot in front of the other.

She heard a croak and didn't look up. _Some frog. Some bird. All the frogs and all the birds look the same too. Except for the pretty ones. I do like the scarlet finches and the jewelled hummingbirds. I hate toads and the loose slimy skin over their throats too, why do they have that extra skin anyway?_

She stumbled over a branch, almost falling into a grey-blue pool in the forest in the fog. She raised herself up by the branch she had grabbed at the last minute. A large bird sat by the pool, claws clutched around another branch. A huge kite with glossy black feathers on wings and tail, night-dark as a death omen.

Or would've been all dark if not for the human head on its body. Her features were a deathly yellow-white in the light of a sunset, but in line they reminded Imoen of Dynaheir. The woman's mouth opened, and she only croaked like a bird.

_You came to my dreams, you asked me to put your bones back to Rashemen, your land— _Imoen tried to say.

_I am gamayun and I warn you_, the bird with the human head said. _A bird with the head of a woman is wisdom in this land. You are a bird._

Imoen woke.

—


	4. Chapter 4

"—Because these tracks are high to the ground and unspoiled, the herd of elk only passed through bare hours ago!" Minsc said. "And they have found plenty to eat this Mashenka season; because they left this good moss only half eaten! This elk weighed heavy, and in this spoor are signs of pregnancy. It will be an easier path to follow in their tracks; they will be peaceful and friendly, and Minsc and Boo may make friends with them. Ah, the tracks of the homeland!" Minsc's smile stretched wide across his face, and this time Imoen could not help but return it.

"You are familiar with the ways here," Jaheira said shortly, following on. She touched the earth; she bent to try to pick up a small plant in the hollow of a tree root, the same as she always did when she saw something she could heal with.

"No, stop!" Minsc called. He rushed over to her, the smile suddenly turned to almost a scowl, at least as much as Minsc could scowl. "You cannot take azure starflower in the shadow of a spruce root! Not without the ritual. The telthor must be asked permission. Nothing is to be taken without the spirits. We must live lightly on the land..."

"I am a druid; do you think I do not?" Jaheira drew herself up. "I serve Silvanus, to whom Mielikki is bound to serve. In this land..."

"In this land she is pretty Khelliara, one of the Three above all the good spirits who protect the land," Minsc said. _Khelliara, Bhalla, the Hidden One: land, growth, and magic itself_, Imoen knew. _Mielikki, Chauntea, and Mystra, to the rest of the world._ "I am pleased to call her by her true name once more! Lady Khelliara, the tall fair Lady of the Forests, the golden unicorn! I came through these forests and became chosen by her as a ranger. And so Boo and I return—come—return! Feel the air of home and feel it expand your chest and make righteous hair sprout there!"

"I'll pass on the righteous hair," Imoen said, sparing a laugh for that one, "but I'll take the clean air."

_Touch too clean. Huh, sis?_

Imoen glared up at the perfectly blue sky, and walked on. Minsc took them further up, through a slender pathway winding up another mountainside, yet another day wearing and gone while they passed to the right spot for Dynaheir. Once they'd had to fight their way through a band of goblins; leftover Thayvian experiments, Minsc said, only sport for ranger and hamster to practice on. The other animals were a part of Rashemen and must not be hunted except for need.

The quiet of the day changed where he pointed to a different set of tracks that led down through a stony gorge.

"Red Wizards have been here. The marks—do you see the marks of iron and steam vehicles below? They lead back to the border of Thay—there was a mage's battle here—"

Minsc pointed to blackened ground and overturned rocks and led them down instead of upward. Imoen could see it for herself.

_Yeah, the ol' patterns of the Weave—flung around some serious spells—some seriously painful spells—bones over here and death—_

_Gods, I hate feeling like a Bhaalspawn. Especially when I don't count any more. It's just the necromantic magic._

Imoen picked her way over to where she knew something lay. It was hidden in the shadows: a melted silver mask covering a skull, only a glint or two of the metal visible below black ash.

"Here lies a Witch," Minsc said. "A Witch and other Witches. These were mighty fallen heroes of Rashemen." He stepped through the ruins.

_Y'know, Minsc, it was worse than that_, Imoen thought. The divination spooled white over to her from the threads left over. _They cast the necromancy on her while she was still alive. She decayed screaming until her mind caught up with her own dead body. And they must've captured her first; because that's not the sort of spell you can cast on a halfway decent mage upright with their defences standing. —Wonder what she told them or didn't tell them when they questioned her?_

She walked past the old battlefield.

"The steam and iron went back," Minsc said, pointing down the long steep path. "They did not stay upon Rashemen land. But back with them they took slaves." He lifted a dusty deerskin glove small enough to belong to a child, plainly stitched. "This is what the Witches fight against."

Imoen looked away. "There're always good and bad folk on both sides, right?" she said. "You went on about the durthan, I guess your spirits of the land aren't always nice either."

_Im, stop it!_ she told herself, though no bolt of lightning appeared in the air to nag her.

"There is greater evil, and there is lesser evil, and often Minsc and Boo kick the butt that is closest to the bootheel of Good!" her ranger went on, clenching his fists. "But there is greater evil, and then there are slayers who steal people and land that has never belonged to them, and there is Minsc's home and there are the ones who would take it and want it to be dead to be less trouble! I would...show them the ways of Khelliara, and show the durthans, and aid the warriors of the Ice Dragon Berserker Lodge to fight away the invasions, until the border of Rashemen ends, and not one hamster whisker further, for that is the way to become a bad Witch and a durthan!"

"Balance in all things," Jaheira said. "I dislike this foulness. Minsc, I agree with you."

"S'pose we could go on a mission down to Thay," Imoen said, shivering; the air had become very cold. "Jaheira's done heaps of sneaky slave-rescuing Harper business before—I guess we could chase after them—

"Or we can't do anything but get on with what we already came to do," Imoen said. The small black packet hung gravely from Boo's collar. "Let's get out of here." But she took a small peg of wood out of her pouch, and spelled it into a large gravemarker. She laid it in the stone ground above the silver mask before she walked away.

—

Imoen saw Lake Mulsantir for the first time below the mountains that already shone with snow; she saw its reflection of a thousand skidding grey clouds of the sky above, a mirror and a picture, and looked up to see only a small grey spot barely the size of a thumb in the far horizon.

"Minsc? —Jaheira? It's weird but I..."

"'Tis marvellously unspoiled, Minsc. The sight of water always calms," Jaheira said as if nothing was wrong. "The brilliant blue. The rising mountains and their natural valley; it looks pure and restored. One could lose oneself for days in that clear water."

"But the water must have the prayer to telthor or Bhalla or even rusalka to be fit to drink," Minsc said. "The waters were damaged by the ones who came before the Witches, those who seared and reshaped the land almost beyond repair as if the land was evil's eggshell at evil's breakfast time; but that was when cities floated upside down in the air. Boo and I are content to know little of such times, for in the waters we see only hamster and ranger prepared to fight evil. Good has rung in the Hero's Teatime to fight against evil breakfast smashing!"

_Netherese wars, so terrible that the goddess of magic herself changed her ways of the spells she gave to mankind; it was in those ancient times that Bane and Bhaal and Myrkul laid human mortality aside for godhood; and so—can I see—?_

Imoen gazed into the deep lake and saw the clouds chase each other through the passings of a black storm. She waited for cruel ancient wizards with the power to raze the earth and cause death that even Bhaalspawn at their wars would envy; but none of those came in her visions. Lightning lanced from the lake's disturbed skies, and again Imoen looked up into the sky and wished for something.

_Hey, p'raps we chased the wraith types off?_

The storm had begun by the sixteenth hour.

—

Black skies, thick clouds tossed by the wind and changing a thousand times a minute, thick trees bent up and down and every which way by the wind, the storm reaching at cloaks and feet to overturn you and carry you far away with it where it went, the wild wind flying down from the stars and back up again with leaves and warm breath and shimmering lightning all carried within it like a furious panther spitting against the black void. Branches shattered out in splinters; a thousand leaves and ten thousand pine needles blew against their faces, the wind first a whip and then a partner in a terrible dance. Hail rained from the sky in white frozen bolts hard enough to ram holes in the weaker parts of the mountain's rising face. It was bitterly cold.

Nik loved storms even before. Imoen knew a hundred times that she'd slip out of bed in the dark and run to the tallest tower, and stand on the edge of the battlements with her black hair set free to rise with the wind, soaked by the rain. Or she'd run down to the sea by the rocks through the old hidden way through the west wall she and Imoen both had cleared, down to the stony beach lashed by angry waves, and stand by the flying saltwater on the slippery rocks. Imoen balanced like a cat and still prayed to Tymora for the mad stunt to end already; Nikothodes laughed in joy at each salty wave crashing on her, her hair blown into stiff rats' tails and her nightgown black for dripping so much water. And afterward it was only Imoen who got chills and spent days in bed on hot pepper potions.

_Yeah, it's weird I once thought my sister was _normal_._

Nik was a priestess, but not like proper priests. She liked storms and she called rain and lightning and she touched people to heal them, but she couldn't pray and expect it to work every time. She wore Shaundakul's silver hand, windswept daughter of the Rider of the Winds; but she never heard him speak to her, only the whirling of the winds she called. In some battles lightning stormed down on her enemies and earthquakes struck the ground below their feet, and in others she had nothing but the grey jagged edge of her sword to depend on. Nik's healing was never Jaheira's concentrated chanting that pieced you together bit by bit, but a quick brush by her fingertips or even a cold brief kiss; and either you were put together all at once as if icewater mended your veins, or there was only a shock of static and she shook her head and went on. Perhaps she was a sorceress who only thought of herself as a priest, a wild storm-sorceress of lightning and rain.

She picked goddess up at the Throne of Bhaal and never looked back.

_Heya_, Imoen wanted to yell up at the pelting black sky, _you still around, sis? Or is Talos Stormlord after us instead!_

Wrong; Talos had no place in Rashemen, Minsc's witch should know that one easy. Neither did Cyric, the other one who wanted her sister dead, the one who'd killed Daddy Bhaal to begin with and took his place and that of a couple other dead gods.

_Bane and Bhaal and Myrkul started out human, just like Cyric; and went on quests to kill gods and become them. A long time ago, and I'd never want that; I couldn't be a god and I didn't want to be that, still don't_, Imoen thought. _Not me. Not ever. No way, Nik._

_And the other three weren't even half-gods when they were still human. Just ordinary folk. Like Minscy and Jaheira._

Imoen struggled through the rain and hail. The trees were lashed from side to side, swaying and dancing as if the wind was their partner in a volta that would lift them right off the ground and away. Minsc insisted that they get away from the trees in case the branches blew on their heads; keep moving at all costs. Imoen summoned a dancing flame to keep her hands warm and her way lit, and drops of rain and hail shone in its light.

_I saw a storm in the lake, I did see a storm, black as night and tossed by a vast tempest._

Jaheira was still upset that nature didn't work the way she expected it here, and scowly over Khalid as always; Minsc was oblivious. He defied the storm and started to sing even above its torrents.

_To the Hidden One's mystery, to Bhalla's long history!_

_Khelliara's forest songs sing, Bhalla's cherry metals ring!_

_The Witch with her thread, Iron Lord without dread,_

_Smith over her forge, barbarian race to the gorge._

_—_

_All one, one all, Three now, one toil!_

_One land, one song, one heart._

_One all, all one, one moon, one sun._

_One song, one land, tale's start!_

_—_

_Mother of Earth, Lady of Growth, Sister of Silence, Three on their oath!_

_Khelliara to grow and Bhalla to glean, the Hidden to govern, the land to change clean._

_A forest grown wild, the Lady's free child._

_A forest deeply dug, the Mother's gentle tug._

_A forest enspelled, the Sister rides well._

_—_

Minsc sang on.

—

_All one, one all, Three now, one toil!_

_One land, one song, one heart._

_One all, all one, one moon, one sun._

_One song, one land, tale's start!_

_—_

_Free fruits of the earth are the Lady's gift_

_To farm and fire metal, pray the Mother to lift._

_The Hidden One's waters run deeper still_

_But to find her within seek your own stream's rill._

_—_

_All one, one all, Three now, one toil!_

_One land, one song, one heart._

_One all, all one, one moon, one sun._

_One song, one land, tale's start!_

And then Imoen joined in on the chorus. Her voice was small against the storm, small always. But even in the rain they sang together. She reached out for Jaheira's solid arm in the dark.

Lightning flashed over and over again, the rolls of thunder all but shaking the ground, one flash and one roll close as if the storm was right above their heads. Lightning was purple high in the clouds, its true colour; Imoen had made sure to look and see if Nik was telling the truth the first time she'd been on a tower high enough for it—and in magery it was blue-white, down on the earth it was yellow. Minsc took them to slight shelter below overhanging rocks, and still he sang all the while.

_Nuts and berries made free, growth from once-scorched earth,_

_From great fires now quenched, iron rivers gave birth._

_To Bhalla the shaping, from the Lady's free run,_

_Forged swords, sister's magic, the telthors' will done._

_—_

_One land, not one's land, a promise from all:_

_Take care of thy homeland when our spirits call._

_The telthor, the Witch, the Iron Lord and men,_

_Thy daughters, thy sons, heed Rashemen then._

_—_

_All one, one all, Three now, one toil!_

_One land, one song, one heart._

_One all, all one, one moon, one sun._

_One song, one land, tale's start!_

Imoen laughed, soaked, leaning against metal on one side and Jaheira's arm on the other, her mage's light radiant. The lightning bolts shocked through the sky in jagged beats, and then she saw that some of them took dark shapes behind them, as if ghosts rode the lightning.

—


	5. Chapter 5

Figures landed, and Imoen feared they were wraiths she had no power to harm. She turned up her magelight, making it incandescent and unstoppable in the dark: they must've already seen them.

_So are they...are they friend or foe, huh? Are they some kinda stormborn?_

They were shapeless black figures as they stood in the dark and the rain. The sight chilled Imoen's blood, and she considered letting Minsc take them just as he'd saved her from the wraiths.

_But doesn't a Witch protect her ranger just as much as the ranger his Witch?_

They raised black javelins and drew daggers, and Imoen flung her largest fireball possible into their midst. It sizzled on things that really existed.

"For the Storm Lord!" they cried, and Imoen just knew they'd come to get her for the sake of her sister.

_I am the Lady of Lightning_, she'd go, or something like that._ I am the wind of the storm and the teeth of the gale. Where the world is wild and free and untamed, there you will find me. I am not a goddess of destruction, but a goddess of life. For after the storm winds blow and the rains come, something new is always fashioned._

_I stand against Talos Stormlord and against Cyric Prince of Lies; I align myself by Shaundakul and Erevan and Llira. I am the Lady of Lightning; I am chaos unbound; and I bring hope and blessing by every storm—_

Or so Nikothodes promised, a stained-glass-window avatar of a woman larger than Nik had ever been in life, wild black hair blown by storm winds and lightning strikes before and behind her, a grey cloud of a dress wrapped around her body and blown ragged by the same tempests.

Left them to cope with the details.

Imoen did her desert-dehydration spell, the one much worse than anything else. Stole the water right out of people's blood and left them to die, icky necromancy but this one worked real well—

They'd run afoul of Talos Stormlord's lightning riders, priests who travelled the storm itself. (_Kinda like a teleport but less fancy!_ Imoen thought, helping Minsc handle them, easy.) Jaheira drew iron around her skin and went into the fray by Minsc's side, and Imoen knew the spells she flung ended up in things that were real.

It looked like it was getting over with. Talos fanatics falling to Minsc's sword in the rain; Jaheira charging and standing proud without a mark on her. Imoen stepped out in the rain, weaving a hold spell between her fingers. Y' couldn't do much with crazy fanatics.

But there was something that had got in the shadows behind her, and she should've caught it long ago for all the sneaking around in the shadows she'd done to avoid Winthrop and chores and then in the first days on the road. A black-clad man who didn't have Stormlord insignia on him, a knife drawn. Imoen drowned him in her trigger, setting him on fire and knocking him back with her sword. Minsc came to protect her.

"There are—many, my Witch!" he called, and Imoen recognised them as Cyricists like the ones in Nik's pocket plane. _Since you test yourself, Child of Bhaal—_directed at Nik and never to Imoen—_Ao can't complain of me sending just a couple of my Chosen to you, surely?_Bloodthirsty assassin creeps with invisibility that fooled the best of truesight castings, a god called the Prince of Lies wasn't half bad at fooling folk—

And four more came out of the shadows. Imoen went with Minsc and tried to get her short sword into the ribs of the first one. Because she was his Witch, she was fighting too as his sword went above her and she got in and under—

"Stand back, my Witch! Khelliara drive these invaders back!" Minsc called. In one of his rare moments of casting a prayer his sword glowed with a keen blue light. But they swarmed him like four black insects. Imoen cast her spells. Minsc moved as if he'd suddenly forgotten how to fight right, and Imoen wondered what had gone wrong with him, but then a blade that would have hit her cut into him instead. He bled; she got behind him and tried to patch up the wound while he fought on, her sleeves soaking with Minsc's blood.

_Jaheira! Jaheira, oy, where in the Nine Hells're you! Need you—_

Imoen made the touch of her hands a ghoul's, more icky necromancy she saved until she really needed it, and went for the throat of the nearest man trying to kill her ranger. Then she flung her arms around Minsc and did the chanting for a sun's fire, the spell always around the caster because it was generated by your own will and heart, and with him so close by her side he'd be safe from it the same as she. It flared with golden light while she held him close and she left their enemies burnt and dead quickly. Then Jaheira ran to help them.

The rain soaked the ground as easily as blood, and they tried to care for Minsc until the storm should fade.

—

Imoen hadn't slept, she would have sworn that, too busy helping Jaheira with Minsc. The Cyricists had a thing for poisoning their weapons, and it was one Jaheira hadn't come across before, but he'd turned the tide a couple hours ago and colour was coming back to his face. The storm passed over; the night passed; and the new day was still grey instead of blue yet, washed-over.

Imoen rubbed a sleeve over her crusted eyes, the sleeve itself stiff with drying blood. She was half-dreaming. She was seeing things again. Feathers, silver, robes regal like Dynaheir's when she'd got a new set mended and altered, three figures at once like mother and sister and lady. They stood in the fog beyond the overhang as if they'd been there for a hundred and ten years, but they couldn't have stood there for that long. They stood like they belonged to the land.

Imoen saw three mages in robes and masks. One silver as the fallen witch; one black-feathered as a kite, and the third a soft dull brown. Not a face or flash of skin to be seen, though Rashemen wasn't exactly a warm place. All robed and gloved and booted and masked.

They wouldn't be three mages, Imoen knew. They'd be three wychlaran. The witches in charge of Rashemen.

Minsc opened his eyes, smiled, and spoke. "Sisters of my country!" he said. "Noble witches!"

The middle witch inclined her head with a grace that reminded Imoen inescapably of Dynaheir. "I welcome thee and thy companions to the homeland, son of Rashemen."

—

The witches travelled with them up the mountain. The speaker said her name was Radoslava, but didn't introduce the other two; they seemed happy enough to stay quiet. Jaheira walked easily enough with them, though she didn't let go of her always-wary air. Imoen liked that they were nice to Minsc, and he talked to them as if they were old friends. Which it turned out they were, in a way. He remembered Radoslava from the old days, and they kept slipping into their own language instead of the Common Imoen and Jaheira could understand.

"These are the peaks where witches are trained," Minsc said suddenly, pointing to their path ahead. "Where sweet Dynaheir began. Where..."

_Where we'll bury what's left of her._ Imoen straightened her back and squinted across at it.

"Dynaheir of Rashemen was my friend and Jaheira's, and died trying to aid us," Imoen said. "She was brave, and wise, and taught me most of the magic I know. She carried serenity with her and gave people order in their lives without half of them realising it. She stood up for herself; she was grave and calm and had this sense of humour below it all—I remember it bubbling up when she'd see an irony, or when she'd slip something into a conversation and you wouldn't get the joke until a few seconds later, when she still looked so solemn until you laughed and she'd give way to it too—" The memories were coming too fast now for Imoen to deny them, tumbling one over the other of Dynaheir with her spellbook, Dynaheir crooning over Candlekeep tomes where she didn't think anyone could see her talking to books, Dynaheir in the midst of a battle with red sparks crackling through her hair and invocations and courage that never failed.

_And Dynaheir the ghost._

"She was a wonderful mage and companion. And we miss her." Imoen finished softly.

Jaheira gave her one of those appraising sidelong looks. "Well spoken, Imoen," she said simply, and those few words from Jaheira were worth far more than a thousand in other mouths.

"Dynaheir was once dear to me," Radoslava said. Unconsciously—or far's Imoen could tell with the masked cloaked woman—the wychlaran snaked a gloved hand around a small pouch hung around her neck.

"Yes, in the old days sweet Dynaheir and little Radoslava were friends!" Minsc beamed. "They swore an oath of eternal sisterhood and wore a lock of hair of each other in pouches."

"A childish melodrama on both our parts, but I do not regret it." Radoslava looked across at their path. "For Dynaheir, could I do anything but aid you? Besides, in the company of a witch you shall face no troubles on our training grounds."

"Thanks," Imoen said.

"And it is there that I first met Dynaheir," Minsc said, pointing into a valley grown with fir. "I was on a hunt for the Ice Dragon Berserker Lodge, for it is honourable to kill prey if one man hunts one beast for others, and there she practiced her spells. I ran into her while running for the elk and she spattered me with acid. This was by accident, because Dynaheir was kind even when she was young. She then healed me as good as new with her herbs against poison! She was also the cousin of a cousin to me, although a wychlaran is family only to all Rashemen. Then I had...my head wound...but still it was I Dynaheir asked to share dajemma! Noble Dynaheir was my charge—until she was slain." Tears still came to Minsc's eyes to tell it, and he flung his right arm around Imoen. "Then little Imoen helped me deliver her murderer to hamster justice, and became my new Witch to restore my honour! Radoslava, this is the apprentice of Dynaheir and a Witch to this Ice Dragon Berserker!"

"I am glad for your happiness," Radoslava said simply. She gestured smoothly to a flat moss-covered stone not far from the road. "The day starts to grow warm. Would you care, perhaps, for some sjorl, Minsc? I have no jhuild, but I know when I was on dajemma I longed for this."

Minsc gave a nod, eyes wide. "Minsc and Boo both! Bring on the mighty sjorl cheese, and we will introduce Imoen and Jaheira to this great delicacy!"

Imoen felt happier with some food in her. She considered sjorl not so much in the category of cheeses as the category of raging, burning infernos that needed the immediate replacement of a mouth; but she'd discovered she liked Rashemi bread with their set of light herbs baked in it, fresh goats'-milk butter, and hardboiled eggs with yolk taken out and stuffed with half the herbal products of the region. Radoslava shared their food in return. Her companions hardly seemed to eat at all, but Radoslava ate like a bird too. Hardy, healthy types who lived lightly on their lands.

Mountain water, Radoslava offered to wash it down, all drinking from the same skin; Imoen tasted it fresh and with a tang from Rashemi spirits that quelled the sjorl's fire in her throat.

They were on a green path starting to grow snow on its sides; but Imoen felt warm in a jacket Minsc had made sure she had. The lake below, blue this time. The sun rising high. It was rare enough in her and Nik's adventures that she'd the chance to feel a bit of peace.

_I do like this place—_ Imoen thought, and returned a bright smile from her ranger. _It's not a city for thieves, but it's pretty. No, not pretty, pretty's three foot by three of an Athkatla flowergarden cut within an inch of its life. Rashemen's far wider than that, old and free and wild— Majestic. Wonderful. Amazing. Minsc's home. Dynaheir's home._

"You are aware that Imoen is a former Child of Bhaal? Jaheira said clearly. "That Minsc and I helped to resolve the Tethyrian wars? That she is sister to the Lady of Lightning?"

Radoslava didn't show surprise that Jaheira knew that she knew, though under the mask you really couldn't tell. "I have heard even as a witch of far-off Rashemen," she said, and the faint edge there as she mocked herself made Imoen think again of Dynaheir. "The stories have spread, but I would not be so rude as to demand the sharing of a person's own story."

"That's fine," Imoen said. "I'm not a demigoddess or a secret high priestess or anything—it's just me, Imoen—just me, Imoen, archmage. And I...don't need to share it with strangers. Sorry."

"There is no need to be," Radoslava said.

"And we also got Talosians and Cyricists upset at us, coming here," Imoen added. Sometimes she had to remind herself that it also wasn't normal to face assassins every Secondday. "Sorry we brought that up here on your head."

"Talos' and Cyric's vile servants? How in keeping for the likes of those abhorrent outsiders," Radoslava said, and sounded almost excited at the prospect of teaching a wychlaran lesson or two to the likes of those; or perhaps even as if she'd expected it and was satisfied to know it now. "No unbowed wychlaran fears the likes of those."

The subject drifted to herb lore to bring Jaheira in, Minsc trying an occasional opinion about the best way to rid yourself and your hamster of rashes from frolicking in suspicious Calishite bushes.

They walked higher. The air felt different; to Imoen it strengthened her. She saw white flowers high on the path, pure as the snow by them and wound around with downy grey leaves and fronds that looked like white wool. Grass still bloomed in the season alongside ice and snow. She walked by a frozen-over cave and saw her reflection, red-haired and thickly dressed and about to point out her tongue at herself and laugh. Jaheira taller than her and sober, tougher than her, head unbowed though she mourned the fallen. Minsc a walking mountain of armour and enthusiasm, half melancholy for Dynaheir and half excited as a child to be in his home and taking his Witch there at last. Radoslava's feathered mask dark as the black ice; somewhere behind her friends, only shadows in the distorted reflections... Imoen turned to catch up.

_I don't need to share it with strangers_, she thought.

_But it's not as if I don't remember my sister the demigoddess all too well._

—

"Melissan was our birth mother, Im. I suppose she always regretted allowing Gorion to find out where she was keeping the Children. And nearly killing us by her own priestesses." Nikothodes leaned on her sword, her right hand stemming the wound on her thigh from Melissan's halberd. "She's not a goddess. She's not _my_ goddess. And now...by Shaundakul!...I'm ready."

Nikothodes sheathed her sword with some effort, took a step forward, and trod on the end of Melissan's weapon. She brought it up into her hands; made it iron and a part of her, gathering strength from it like Keldorn did from Carsomyr. Imoen watched Melissan's writhings on the ground and couldn't feel any more than if she'd watched a green-gold bug twitch on a pin.

_—So maybe I took after Mum—red-haired, small mouth you'd call rosebud if you were being nice, skin that burns easy in summer—bet Melissan's did for all her fancy priestessing tricks, bet it did—and Nik after Dad, perhaps, evil long-gone Bhaal—_

Imoen looked up at her sister again and still couldn't see one point of similarity in their features beyond the bond they'd picked up from Gorion. She huddled over her own wounds. Sarevok watched from the shadows behind, Minsc and Jaheira on the ground together, Keldy up and beyond the solar and waiting. The Throne of Bhaal was a blinding green pillar, and the whipping tendrils of energy from it drew Nik's dress and hair out like winds blowing behind her, the green on the edge of lightning-lit stormclouds drawing her in. Nik held the big halberd like its weight was nothing to her.

"You may choose," the solar said. "Take the essence before you and choose to become a goddess. Or choose to allow it to be locked away atop Mount Celestia, remain mortal, and Bhaal's essence shall do no more harm. Either way Melissan will perish, for she has bound her soul too closely to her share."

"You know what I choose," Nik said, dark eyes on nothing but the Throne before her. It was done.

_And the thing was—_ Imoen thought in sad anger. _The thing was that she didn't even stop to think about it—_

Nikothodes turned, taller than she had been. Her wounds were gone, the halberd turned to a long jagged spear shaped like her sword had been, and the silver hand of Shaundakul was no longer about her neck. Her eyes were utterly black, no trace of whites even where there should have been. Purple lightning danced around the edges of her shape and illuminated her, and her own storm blew from the Throne of Bhaal. The Storm Harpy. The Lady of Lightning. Imoen's sister. _Nik_, Imoen let die on her tongue.

"All of you were my companions," the Lady of Lightning said, and she dismissed the solar with a smile like a snowborn wind. "I thank you all. Storms will bless you, as much as it lies in my power. I will come to all those who speak my name, any with a life tossed and shaped by strange winds." She raised a hand in the air; Imoen felt herself heal, felt a cold current of air blow along her body and stroke along the nape of her neck for a moment.

Nikothodes extended a hand to brother Sarevok, who knelt at her feet.

_He was creepy-dangerous even after she gave him part of her soul! I never got to the point of liking him_, Imoen thought. _Not after he killed Mr G. and tried to kill her that many times._

"Sarevok, you were my brother. Become my High Priest." Sarevok spoke something to accept. She touched the top of his head, and then he stood with a new power in him, standing at her right hand.

_And that was what he wanted with her. Power,_ Imoen thought.

"Imoen, I know what you've always wanted," Nikothodes said. Imoen's planned retort to that caught in her dry throat. "As much as I can help it you won't have to worry about being a Bhaalspawn again. You _definitely_ won't have to worry about turning into a giant lobster."

Something Imoen hadn't ever known was there was removed from her. She felt lighter, and as if she should have felt happier; but she wasn't any happier, and Nik should have known why.

"Keldorn, without your sword and your wisdom and your true sight I should have been lost a thousand times. You have given me your age on this quest, and so I return your youth."

Imoen wouldn't have recognised the man in his early twenties, not without the scars and grey hair and permanent shadows under his eyes. The beard was dark brown, the eyes grey and clear as Nik's used to be, the armoured figure straight-backed and youthfully muscled. She wouldn't have pickpocketed this one and fooled like she just wanted to explore his rippling muscles and what he wore under the armour.

"It will stay longer than the first time, I think, Keldorn. I only wish there was more I could do.

"Minsc," Nikothodes said, "I can give little that you do not already have. Your strength. Your kindness. And my assurance that you and Boo will live as long a life as any Rashemi warrior, and be together until the day you die."

"Then Boo and I say goodbye to you," Minsc said solemnly. He didn't kneel like Sarevok had.

"And you, Jaheira, you are the same: you need nothing I can give you, but I bless your staff to give you iron strength always. I cannot return what I lost you, for his soul is beyond any's reach." Lightning flashed across the black eyes, as if Nik was searching some far planes that human eyes could never see. Imoen, who'd shared nearly all sights with her sister since she'd come to Candlekeep, knew she'd never be able to follow Nik now. "Go content. All of you."

_And then they were silent and alone in a field outside Athkatla; and Sarevok walked alone and Keldorn back to the wife he'd married twenty years ago..._

—

And then the dreams about Dynaheir started after Jaheira had them begin digging in the rubble for Khalid.

_Dynaheir died first at Irenicus' hands. Imoen had remembered the red scraps in the robe; but that was replaced by the scattered bones now, and she was glad of that. She didn't remember Dyna's death the same as she remembered Khalid's body and what that sick twisted mage had made her do._

_Cut. Do you see? Cut. Do you see? He is dead. Where is his soul? Cut. Do you see?_

_Jaheira, I...I thought you'd want to know, those things—those things were done to him after he was dead, not before—_

_Silence! No more words, child! No more words! Words are nothing!_

Then after the promenade exploded over the dungeons the Cowled Wizards' drugs and magic-dampening had done their best to take Imoen's memories away from her. Next went her soul. Then Nik stuck a stake deep inside the vampire who stole it and Imoen started learning how to be herself again.

She'd seen a friend or two die before Dyna and after too. Part being an adventurer. Part being a Bhaalspawn. She'd gotten over Coran and Viconia and Haer'Dalis, she'd barely had time to think about Dynaheir let alone mope over it. Dynaheir was her friend who taught her magic. She was gone. That was it.

Dynaheir's face followed her dreams. Imoen climbed a mountain, over and over again, trying to find her. She was wrapped in graveclothes, ashen and frail; and asked Imoen to bury her properly over and over again.

"_Thy quest is done now, Imoen. Take my bones back to the homeland, my friend. I beg this last favour of thee. My Minsc will take thee. In the name of all I was to thee take my bones to the place I loved most._"

And then Dynaheir would gesture out over mountains of snow and ice and green grass in spring, deep pine forests smelling of needles and water so fresh and cold Imoen felt it in her throat even after she woke. Then she started finding dried Rashemi plants in her nightdress, and knew it was time to tell Minsc.

Jaheira didn't say she had any true dreams of Khalid.

"_I cannot rest in a land not mine own, Imoen. Take me to the land I would have served unto the last drop of blood in my body. Take me home._"

Imoen could see those same mountains now.

—

"Bhaal was Nar, some stories say," the wychlaran said. Imoen had fallen back in the group, and beside her was one of the silent wychlaran. The one in the brown-feather mask. Her voice was low-pitched, and sounded creaky as if she didn't use it much. "The peoples before the Rashemi. Nar and Raumathari. In the end they tore the land and ripped out the mountains and valleys and left scars below the earth that still have not healed. But some of their tribes also served Bhalla in the old days. Our names for the Three are still those old names."

Bhaal, Bhalla. Close.

"And Bhaal was dedicated to Bhalla in a sanctuary to her," the wychlaran said. "Then of course he betrayed that part of himself."

Imoen puzzled out the lands. She'd never had to think of Bhaal since that day at the Throne. Everyone had to come from someplace. Why not 'round here? Bhaal, sticking what he'd used to be and turning to assassin. Dyna hadn't said it, but maybe she hadn't heard that story or reckoned she had the time.

"Was a long time ago," Imoen said.

"Yes. But there are still sanctuaries to Bhalla near," the wychlaran said. Radoslava looked back, and the brown-masked wychlaran went up to be with her. Imoen trudged on by Jaheira's side.

—


	6. Chapter 6

Left-right and left-right and every tree and every snowdrift looks exactly the same. Imoen shivered. She could see so much from up here, forests, rivers, the lake, the far-distant peaks, yellow and rosy sunlight on snow for the early evening. How long had they been walking? It felt like she'd been out of things for a while. It got that way sometimes, and if you were new to adventuring you only hoped you'd get deep enough in your own head to forget the pain in calves and thighs. Or else she'd be figuring out a new spell and a bit distracted off, because even Imoen had her serious moments. Minsc was quiet and his face blank, a few paces away from her on the right. Jaheira was off on her other side, one away from Radoslava on Imoen's left. She wasn't saying anything either. The silent wychlaran walked in front like some sort of honour guard. The ground below Imoen's feet was marked by smooth brown stones tracing out the path. It wound in sharp corners and Imoen thought she saw it like a labyrinth maze.

Imoen shook her head, willing snowflakes to fall in her brain and snap her out of this with a shock of cold. Step by step she tracked the wychlaran.

_Something is wrong._

_Something is very wrong._

Imoen's throat felt numb. She moved her lips.

"Heya, what's going on?"

The trees moved. One time she and Nik'd met this mad necromancer who went on about the trees moving to get him. Mind you, Jaheira had disliked him on sight. The trees really were moving. The mountain maze went forward with them, up and always up. In the haze beyond the trees Imoen saw black shapes of birds taking flight, but she couldn't be sure what she saw.

"'Heira! Minsc!" Imoen called, though it came whispered out of her throat. "Minsc, come and—Minsc, please!"

Minsc's face was empty and he didn't once look to her.

_So is Radoslava secretly a mad Cyricist? Mad Talosian? Mad assassin working for a slaver we've beat up? People change—Minsc should've known that—if'n he'd not recognised her I'd never've trusted no way no how—_

_...or maybe just mentioning Dyna's name would've tricked silly little Immy. Doesn't matter! Get outta here!_

"The water," Imoen whispered in her hoarse voice. "You poisoned the water—but you and your friends drank it too! What, did you gulp down antidote just before?" But Imoen was sharp-eyed and she would've noticed if they'd eaten or drunk from the time since she'd first seen them to the time they'd eaten and a bit after. Nothing. "Cast a spell real quiet? Special Rashemi witch immunity?"

Radoslava turned her head and lowered her mask, and the face Imoen saw reminded her so much of Dynaheir that she forgot to speak for another few moments. It wasn't so much the features, a light brown face with a long hooked nose and irregular faint scars down both cheeks, but the same regal calm as if the wychlaran knew with her whole heart she did the right thing.

Trouble was that Dynaheir usually actually did the right thing, and had never once drugged anyone against their will that Imoen knew of.

"Not a poison," Radoslava said steadily. "Nor does it matter to harm me. And my companions cannot be poisoned.

"_Razkovniche_. Key to every lock. A dreamer's potion."

The maze branched. Imoen's limbs moved without her help.

Jaheira stared stiff ahead and still didn't do anything. Her lips moved slightly, and Imoen could imagine her breathing Khalid's name alongside each slow heartbeat. Minsc was blank and held Boo tightly in his right hand, the hamster's eyes closed and his furry chest gently rising and falling.

_C'mon, Im_.

Imoen looked at the tangled walls of the maze. The smooth brown stones that marked the border glowed faintly with some inner light. A dark green haze grew up from them like spreading, thin vines that fogged up the deep forest and the black rocks that walled in the maze. The path under her feet had been raked and smoothed, as if very few ever came here. Grey flowers waved at her from the edges, joined by blue and dull red and pale yellow, opening at the edges of fat fruits that lay almost ready to be picked if someone leaned down. Pumpkins, puffball mushrooms, cucumbers and red berries. Her legs walked on, because in a labyrinth there was only one place to go.

_Hey, I got told Bhaal was Bhalla's. This why they want me?_

Imoen saw the silent wychlaran down their masks. More like the masks melted away, silver and soft brown slipping into dust. Below them dead skin tried to paper over yellowing skulls, and somehow Imoen wasn't surprised that poison couldn't hurt them any more. She saw their robes as if patterned by rain and dark, and floating above the skulls she saw faint images of blank featureless masks. Small wonder masks were empty when they belonged to the dead.

_They were the wraiths_, she thought slowly, watching them walk past. _And they were never women, let alone wychlaran._

_What's that word for a male Rashemi spellcaster? Vyerodingalingthing?_

She caught faces of home peering at her past the labyrinth's walls. Winthrop. Parda. Phylida.

_—Oh, hey, back there at Candlekeep, I thought I'd miss you much less than I did and I'm glad you're not sucked into this with me—_

Shistal, a young monk she'd played a few pranks with in her time before he'd been murdered and eaten and replaced by a doppelganger with his bones stuffed in the priest's hut.

_—Oh, hey, you, why do the people I know always end up dead? Why do the people I meet end up dead half the time?_

A little Underdark gnome boy she'd argued against helping back to his folks when they'd no time and needed to fake being drow, but at the time she hadn't got a soul.

_—Well, I could say I'm sorry, but you're probably not real and if it helped it'd only help to your face._

Nik as she used to be, skinny whippet of a kid who'd seemed big and tall to Imoen at the time, taking her everywhere and not letting her get in any trouble.

_Heya yourself, sis._

She was seeing the wrong ghosts here, Imoen realised, and didn't turn her head to try to spot Khalid walking by Jaheira's side.

_Dynaheir and Radoslava learned spells, practicing to be witches and defend their land._

_A grey-robed man took out a goblet from his robes, waving it and showing off all the spells he'd put on it; and his enthusiasm was so much that it was impossible not to share it._

_Then there were two men on either side of Radoslava, all three of them talking and laughing, but their faces were already like the two skulls over robes._

"I see your dreams," Imoen said. "What'd they do to you?" She was hoping one of the silent skulls would speak up again, but the dead said nothing.

Radoslava turned her head. Around her neck a lump of warm amber openly carried a lock of dark hair that would match the bone carried by Boo.

_Y' can do all sorts of necromancy if you're bad enough, with that sort of thing._

"They murdered," she spat, and Imoen remembered the melted silver mask in the gorge.

"We're not Thayvian," Imoen spat back.

"Radomir. Fedya. Dynaheir. I do this in the sake of all your names," Radoslava said. Imoen heard bees buzzing and birds singing past the labyrinth. The scars on Radoslava's face deepened and peeled back, and she grew gaunt and ill as if her true face was near to death. The two dead men with her did not look back at her. Imoen caught at more dreams, and closed her eyes because it was too close to what Irenicus had used to cut into her. She saw Red Wizard faces and felt her lover die with his little brother. Then she found a knife left too close to her and cut her own wrist and smeared the blood on Radomir's dead skin to cast—

"You must stop this, Radoslava!" Minsc cried, and Imoen's ranger was free to speak at last. He grabbed the nearest to him, the dead man Fedya, and Radoslava screamed out in pain—

"Don't hurt him! Promise not to hurt him any more! I'll tell you—swear I'll tell you—_nozhca gorayashch ay ay ay—_ Fedya, Fedya, Fedya! Speak—"

And she listened to the dead man, who said nothing.

"Stop the spell," Minsc said only.

"I cannot. I dream of Bhalla," Radoslava said, recovered, and then she rested a long sharp knife against Imoen's throat. "I order you to leave him."

"I cannot...allow harm to come to my Witch." But Minsc only let the dead man go instead of helping her. Imoen felt Radoslava reach for a spell.

"_Bereze bara nik_," she said, and Minsc followed. "You will see, little brother. When it is done you will understand what I have done to protect this land, because you all will be changed."

Carved on the labyrinth's stones were sigils. The knife was pressed sharp to Imoen's throat. Cornucopias of fruit. Bundles of wheat and corn grown for harvest.

_Khelliara to grow and Bhalla to glean..._

Iron made to ploughshares and swords.

_To Bhalla the shaping._

_Hey, sis, did you ever get any of Bhaal's memories?_

It was a sanctuary to Bhalla, Imoen saw, an altar over flat ground. A few crude lines were carved into stone and it took a second look to realise they showed wheat. Lines that were the idea of wheat more than a picture of it. Lines from ancestors who hadn't really mastered stone carving yet but Toril was much younger then and the gods were fresh and vital.

_So Bhaal was taken here to the stone and had his hands pressed to it and some of Bhalla went into him, not that it showed in later life._

Jaheira was out of it. She muttered to herself but her iron strength just wasn't there. Imoen hated the dull serrated cold of the blade on her skin. They walked the last phase of the labyrinth, and Imoen wished she wasn't alone.

_...Dyna? Dyna-ghost?_ she hoped, but drifting by the labyrinth's walls Dynaheir only looked disapprovingly at her and shook her head, remote as she was mute.

_Gee, y' bring me here and don't even thank me for it? What's wrong with you?_

Then there was a black shadow with windswept hair and a harpy's claws.

_...Sis? It was always you, Nik. Your adventure. Your friends. And you didn't understand that you left me alone._

And then there was nothing but the straight path to the altar at the heart of the labyrinth. Radoslava pushed her forward and a dead man guarded Jaheira and Minsc each.

_You did that with mazes, passed through to the centre and got out from there._

"Durthan," Imoen got out at the last, "you're not a proper witch any more, are you? You're a bad witch. They refused you after you'd been tortured by the Red Wizards. Maybe you weren't supposed to go so far travelling with the vremyonni—" she remembered it now, artefact-crafters—"or maybe you only failed to protect them."

Everyone thought that when a friend died adventuring, and that was always cruel and usually wrong. Imoen twisted that knife in Radoslava.

"I did not fail!" Radoslava gibbered. "I would have given my life for them—I did everything I ought to have done! It was not enough but that was the fault of the Red Wizards!

"And then," she whispered, the knife on Imoen's throat, "then the telthors stopped hearing me and the Three turned their backs on me. All for raising a few hags to eat Red Wizard guts and taking Fedya and Rasomir back. They don't understand what needs to be done to destroy our enemies."

The altar beckoned.

_Talos and Cyric tried to stop this_, Imoen thought.

"Give Bhaal," Radoslava said, her breath hot on Imoen's neck, "back to Bhalla."

—

Bhalla's altar was a pillar like Bhaal's throne, but all stone and metal and growing things instead of a spiked grim dead mass to house the passage to divinity. Imoen could see it all now. Nice goddess, the kind she wouldn't've minded for a mum or dad, like that lucky bitch the Queen of the Elves—actually, Rillifane's worship had a bit too much running barefoot over tree branches for Imoen's liking, also getting locked up in cages by creepy ex-boyfriends trying to steal your garden— Imoen's dreams were all shattered, everyone had shattered dreams.

Something lashed her down. Radoslava'd probably cut open her wrists and spill blood. Human sacrifice to Bhalla.

_Imoen, I died and was kept by Mystra's arms, as I told thee my faith lay! I would never have tormented thy dreams and played on thy guilt by my will. Live, Imoen. I am dead._

Dynaheir's ghost kissed her, warm where she ought to have been cold, and took hold of her hands and for the moment stopped the knife. But Radoslava was a witch of Rashemen, or had been: she knew the ways of the land and the path of the maze inside and out, and Imoen couldn't compete.

"Radoslava," Imoen said, "didja know Cyric wants you to do this? Evil-bad Thay-worshipped Cyric?"

"He tried to stop me. That shows I do right." Radoslava touched her amber pendant.

"Nah, Talos just hates me because of Nik. Cyric's tricky," Imoen said. "So what're you doing that he wants you to? He wants rid of Nik—"

_He does_, Nikothodes said, walking the divine planes with bare feet. _That's why I warned you, Im._

_Do you really think I'd ever forget you?_

"We are long murdered," said the dead man who guarded Jaheira. "We were given a voice to send the message. Vremyonni and wychlaran give much for our land, but it should never be innocents. Our wraiths would have removed you far until Radoslava finished her death."

"You see," Radoslava said, pulled in at last to the dream, "it does not matter what harms me."

_You'll die, Im_, Nik said. _And I'll die. The Bhaal essence gets blasted from your memory of it back into the pillar. Took me a while to work it out. Swapped favours with Mystra and Oghma until I found archives that Bhaal was dedicated here._ _Reverse it and Bhalla becomes Bhaal..._

"Bhalla will love the murder I have done for her sake," Radoslava said, exultant. "The telthors will understand I did exactly what had to be done. Rashemen will serve vengeance at long last."

A melted silver mask and a child's deerskin glove. Irenicus and his knives. Imoen understood, but she'd never given in. No more than her friends.

Her sleeves still thick with Minsc's blood, Imoen squeezed some of that out on the stone. He was a Rashemi ranger who'd shed blood to save her, and that made her a Witch of Rashemen as good as any other.

Imoen grew wings and rose.

Radoslava was a death-tainted osprey-harpy, flying on black wings to take her down. Imoen flew on those she thought herself, kite's wings, gamayun: for Dynaheir and Nik both. She was a new Rashemi witch, and Radoslava was durthan. Radoslava smelt of death and used every turn she knew in her desperation. But Imoen could see far more than before, and felt the telthors welcome her home.

"I'm Minsc's Witch! I get a say in what Rashemen becomes!"

Thay would be a funeral pyre for Radomir and Fedya and razed to the ground nothing would grow on it for a thousand years. It was no worse than what Thay would do to Rashemen if unchecked. Any other who dared attack would be paid immediately in kind. Witches would take new land and bind themselves to it and spread Rashemen to the reaches of Toril, all to keep it safe.

_Common decency_, Dynaheir would have said_, fairness and restraint. Act within the law but show mercy where thou can..._

_That way is a bad witch_, Minsc would have said. _Boo agrees with this._

_I cannot adjudicate in this_, said a rosy-cheeked woman Imoen wanted to call _mother_, a warm comforting space encompassing her where the woman needed no name to be called. _For gods exist to serve their people._

Imoen added the call of the land to her own magic, and the death spirits Radoslava had called up had no power to stand against it. She heard the other woman's scream, and the dream ended.

She was still tied up with a mess of cords on Bhalla's altar. She pulled at them to rescue herself, but they were too tight. Radoslava rose.

"_...kill you_..." she said, the fanaticism of the nearly-dead looming in her eyes, and raised the Thayvian knife Imoen had seen her dream of taking up against your captors.

_Knife-assassin-kill Nik-change Bhalla—_

"Which god do you think let you find that knife?" Imoen spat.

_Ao help me, it's a game of gods and I'm it!_ she almost sobbed, but it was coming to an end now.

"Bhalla _will_ take me back!" Radoslava screamed, and plunged down the blade. A Rashemi ranger stopped her, but even before Minsc reached her the blade dissolved like black smoke.

Jaheira woke. "For the fallen!" she called. Minsc freed Imoen with the knife on his belt, the wychlaran lying still at his feet. Undead rose in some semblance of a last stand, hags and shambling ghouls beyond the two corpses of friends Radoslava had reanimated.

"Heya, sis?" Imoen said, preparing her spells. "Y'know, Lady of Lightning, I'm not worshipping you and I won't always expect this favour—but a lightning blast right now would be real good!"

Purple bolts churned among the undead in a mass harnessed to their decaying flesh.

"A battle clears the mind and balances the soul!" Jaheira called, wading between the hags. Minsc answered her, flinging across a small pouch from his belt:

"Here, azure starflower I asked the telthor for you! The spell that calls to the east first and the constellation of Vorgamir's Growth is the way to ask for it!" he said.

Jaheira prayed to Silvanus and Mielikki, the earth answering her call this time, and bright blue vines rose out of the earth to strangle near two-thirds of the undead straight back to the ground to feed the dirt. Her voice rose with Minsc, ranger and druid praying to nature; and alike they brought down all undead near.

Imoen let the Weave flow through her, and in her inner eye Mystra's shape was Dynaheir's. Ice froze and lightning crackled through the durthan's creations. Imoen called on Rashemen's power and gave it all the kindness she could in return. She heard the telthors sing back to her.

—


	7. Chapter 7

_Epilogue_

They buried Radoslava and her companions in one grave, burned the undead, met some real wychlaran, and took Dynaheir's hair and bone up to a cold spot near to the Ice Dragon Berserker Lodge, a place where she and Minsc had once spent a summer solstice on a picnic.

Minsc took the black pouch down from Boo's neck, paired it with the amber pendant, and set both in a deep cranny where no predator would find or reach. He stared at it for a long time, deep in meditation, and Imoen patted his back.

He smiled down at her. "I think Dynaheir's spirit was woken and harmed," he said soberly, and the hamster squeaked. "But I prayed and I feel her there. She will be telthor, a protector of this land. Can you feel, my witch?"

Imoen closed her eyes and tried to reach into the Weave but deeper and to the land about, like she'd done when she had to. Perhaps he was right.

"Will you forgive Minsc and Boo for failing you?" Minsc asked. "Little Radoslava was hurt, but that gave her no right to hurt my witch. I should not have trusted her! I failed to protect!"

"No. I want you to trust instead of not trust," Imoen said. "Trust people same as you did Edwina, same as you did Dyna's old friend, if you like. No hiding ourselves away and being miserable, or we'll end up like her with no friends who aren't dead."

"Was that comment intended as a barb?" Jaheira asked coolly. "But it would pain me to leave you and Minsc, Imoen. I am not nearly done with educating you yet." She looked at the landscape and the fields of snow Minsc said were ripe for sledding. "Perhaps there is space here for a Harper's eye and other adventure beside."

"Boo says that little Imoen is becoming nearly as wise as he."

"And also likely saying that it is long past time for her to do so," Jaheira added, her staff in her hands and the familiar, stern expression on her face. Imoen wouldn't have traded those two for all the gold or magic books in the world that a thief or archmage could want.

"Stormy weather tonight, so we must feast in the Ice Dragon Berserker Lodge and then be firmly tucked into beds and small wool beds for hamsters," Minsc promised. "Come and taste Rashemi firewine at last, my witch! And ski and slide—"

Imoen conjured a sled out of thin air and pure magical force, winked at him, and convinced Jaheira to join them on a wild ride back.

—

The storm beat outside, and inside the Rashemi wood and well-banked fire held warm. Across the room Jaheira slept peacefully. Wind whistled through fir trees and rain fell to promise fresh water and new snow the next day.

_The gods in their heavens_, Imoen thought, half dreaming already, _and we mighty adventurers with full stomachs and heads turning from Rashemi firewine._

She walked on air above a storm-tossed sea with her magic by the side of the Lady of Lightning, and Nik turned to look at her.

_Hey, sis, you saved yourself too, y' know, kicked out of the heavens and essence to Bhalla._

Nik tried to give her the inscrutable look of a goddess. _And you righted a wrong and felt a little better about yourself, Im, that's a win too. Nothing like directed random violence._

_Who did you think gave her that knife and got himself invited to Rashemen?_ an uninvited man cackled, and a third player joined the game, wheeling around fiery deaths to join the pieces. _I could have allowed her to kill you but I hate it when mortals guess my plans, and I'd much rather you owe me a favour. Child of Bhaal._

_As if, scumbag_, Imoen said to the god called the Prince of Lies, _I'd already won and you know it._

_Ah, well_, the Mad Lord whispered._ Archmages tend to get themselves into the most interesting kinds of trouble._

_My daughter Radoslava committed many wrongs but she never brought you deliberately to Rashemen_, a third woman joined. _You are banished as always. Witch Imoen, my land is open to you as long as you wish._

The dark man vanished by being swallowed up into a tiny blot of smoke over the dark sky, and then becoming nothing at all. The woman set to leave in the direction of the setting sun, and in the moment before she too went Imoen thought that she saw three smaller figures with her, two male and one female, holding hands in a sunset of another plane.

_Talk to you later, Im_, Nik said. _I'll still be here._ The goddess kicked out with a bare foot, and an ice-cold wave rose up to hit Imoen in the face for a waterfight. Imoen answered as a sister always had to for that outrage.

_...Wait, you don't _dunk_ goddesses! No!_ Nik squealed, and Imoen woke with a hamster on her pillow and far too much light shining in through her windows for the firewine she'd drunk and Jaheira all gung-ho for a rousing natural jog through forests. Imoen thought of seeking out the next storm.

—

_end_


End file.
